1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to portable imaging devices; more particularly to portable scanning or computer assisted tomographic imaging using ionizing radiation; and yet more particularly to portable X-ray imaging of drilling core samples.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,977,586 and 5,153,899, both by the same inventor, both entitled “Portable Tire X-ray Apparatus and Method,” and both hereby incorporated by reference, disclose methods and devices for radiographically imaging tires using an X-ray viewing apparatus. However, both systems disclose operator shielding, which is accomplished by using a “trailer” to contain spurious X-ray emissions, and thereby protect operators from excessive X-ray doses from the X-ray imaging apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,275,563, entitled “Portable Gamma Apparatus for Core Analysis and Method Therefor”, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a gamma ray (γ-ray) imaging device for radiographically examining well cores. However, in this apparatus, the lead shielding disclosed is used solely to reduce the background radiation from producing noise in the γ-ray scintillator used for detecting γ-rays transmitted through a well bore core sample, and fails to teach operator radiation exposure mitigation by radiation shielding of any sort.